The advent of children’s museums is
an effort to provide alternative spaces where learning can be an active
game of engagement. Exhibits built for children’s museums emphasize
learning through play and social interaction of the visitors with the
exhibit and with each other. Comments, discussion and questions explore
the possible results, helping develop reasoning skills during the interaction.
An exhibit can teach through many different ways of presenting content.
For instance subject matter can be presented through text, visuals, sound,
and interactive machinery of gears and levers manipulated by the child.
A good children’s exhibit also presents it’s content with
attention to the narration, or story telling progression.

The EYE EXHIBIT was designed to teach children about the physiology
of the human eye. Conceived as a small room that in the front duplicated
the inside musculature of the eyeball, it was also composed of fun,
attractive interactive stations that visually and tactically invited
the visitor to play.

A round window installed in the front of the small room simulated
a giant eyeball — cornea, pupil, iris and lens with operable parts.
The operable parts opened and closed (dilated and contracted) through
a system of cords and pulleys allowing the young viewer to manipulate
the different parts, while learning how the eye worked. Other learning
stations were placed in different areas of the eye room. Children could
touch the rods and cones, parts of the eye that help us see color.
On one wall the young visitor was invited to play the game, “Do
EYE Know U?” consisting of matching hidden animals pictures to
eyes that were drawn on an adjoining panel. Animals to whom the eyes
belonged were an owl, a frog, an alligator, or a cat. The walls of
the room were also covered with veins and arteries in relief that could
actually be physically traced by the child. The roof of the room was
transparent. On the dome were painted graphics of ancient Egyptian,
Chinese, and Syrian glyphs of eyes along with other pictures of eyes
from different cultures around the world in an exhibit titled, “Eyes
In The Sky”.

Amazing
Eyes! Collage illustrating the diversity of nature for the EYE EXHIBIT by architect
Michael Reuter.